


Put Down Your Weapons and Go Back To Work

by AEpixie7



Series: Ineffable Bureaucracy [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Excuse me waiter, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what happened guys, Idiots in Love, One minute I was writing smut, Protective Gabriel (Good Omens), Whump, Wing Grooming, and it spilled all over this story, and then the jar of feels I keep above my desk spilled, kind of, there appears to be some feels in my smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AEpixie7/pseuds/AEpixie7
Summary: Gabriel discovers a dark secret Beelzebub has been hiding, and becomes instantly very protective. They both realize they can talk to each other about things they don't share with anyone (even though they've been really stupidly nonchalant up until now).





	Put Down Your Weapons and Go Back To Work

**Author's Note:**

> I'm playing kinda fast and loose with angel rankings here. I'm going off of Neilman's idea that Archangel (with a capital A) is more like a designation of hierarchy. Like the way Officer can mean several different ranks within the term. Gabriel is an Archangel, specifically, a Seraph. Michael is an Archangel, but not a Seraph, hence why Gabriel outranks her.

Beelzebub had never felt so relaxed in her entire existence. The life of a demon was fraught with stress and anxiety, which usually manifested in the kind of knots in one's body that would put a dumbbell to shame. But as she slowly felt herself drifting back into consciousness, she couldn’t believe how comfortable and safe she felt. There was a warm, solid body pressed tightly against hers, and steady, rhythmic breathing that nearly lulled her back to sleep. She groaned and squirmed, stretching out her legs and pushing her wings up into the soft hand that was gently petting them. 

“Good morning, my prince,” Gabriel said softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She felt him take a deep breath in, and without opening her eyes, came to the conclusion that she was wrapped in his arms, her head resting on his chest. She wanted to jump away, to at least keep up the _appearance_ of being a ruthless demon. But she was simply too comfortable. 

“Mmph,” she mumbled, nuzzling in closer to him and feeling her heart skip when he tightened his arms around her. There was a bubble of panic at such closeness that, had she been more cognizant, she would have paid much closer attention to. Instead, she chose to slide a hand up his chest and lazily stroke her fingernails down the back of his neck. He forced out a quick breath, his hand returning its task of stroking her feathers. 

“You slept like the dead. When was the last time you let yourself rest?” he asked quietly, and she felt her skin prickling when his fingertips ventured from her wing to her shoulder and down her side. She wanted to shift away from his touch, but managed to keep herself from doing so with no insignificant amount of will power. Demons aren’t _ticklish_ dammit. 

“I don't know, the Crusades, probably?” she mumbled, Gabriel's hand halting its journey over her ribcage. 

“Beelz, that was almost a millennium ago! No wonder you slept so hard.” 

“We’re celestials, we don’t need sleep. Besidezzzz, if I ever took a break, Hell would descend into chaos. Do you have any idea how much _work_ I have to do just to keep the place from imploding? There'zzzz probably a pile of paperwork waiting for me because I took one single night off.” 

“I know we don’t need sleep. Honestly, last night was the first time I've ever tried. But we _do_ need to relax every once in a while. Usually I let Michael groom my wings and that helps me relax. Speaking of which…” Gabriel shifted and rolled to the side, laying her gently on the mattress. She finally peered out her groggy eyes to find him perched up on an elbow, looking insultingly close to a marble statue of Adonis she'd once seen in ancient Greece. She tucked her face into a pillow to hide her blushing. 

“Can I see your wings?” he asked, stroking her wing with the back of his knuckles lovingly. 

“You're looking at them, idiot,” she mumbled into the pillow, hoping her skin's gooseflesh wasn't giving away too much of her body's reaction to his touch. His voice was quietly insecure when he responded. 

“I meant… the other four…” 

She froze, her wings closing tightly against her back and retreating from Gabriel's touch. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her heart hammering and her eyes wide. 

“How… how do you know I have six wings?” she asked, her voice nearly breaking from how weak it was. 

“Well I didn’t until you just told me,” Gabriel said with a wicked grin, to which she reached over and smacked him hard on the chest. 

“_Ow!_ Damn, Bee! I was kidding!” he smiled, rubbing a hand over the red mark her slap had left behind. He averted his gaze as his smile faltered, and he stared down at the sheets as he bit his lip. “I might’ve… stolen your file. The one Heaven has on you. From… before The Fall.” 

Beelzebub bristled, feeling somewhat violated that he had pried into her past, though she couldn't really be angry because of course she had also accessed Hell's file on _him_. She couldn’t remember anything before the Fall, she just got flashes of rage and pain when she thought about it. Still, her tone was sharp when she spoke. 

"Well congratulations, Gabriel. You know more about me now than I do,” she snapped, aware of the effect her tone was having on him but feeling too agitated to care. He shrank back away from her a bit, his eyes still cast down. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. But I… wanted to know more about you. And the file didn’t say anything noteworthy anyway. Most of the files on the Fallen have been redacted. You know how She is about sharing knowledge. I could’ve learned more from a damn apple.” 

Beelzebub couldn’t help the little grin that spread across her lips. At least she _did_ have an upper hand here. Hell was quite a bit more transparent, and the file they kept on Gabriel was much juicier than she would’ve expected. 

“All your file said was your name and rank as an angel. And what part of Creation you were responsible for. It… said you were a Seraph. That’s how I knew you had six wings…” 

Beelzebub thought over this new information, and what Gabriel might have seen in her file. She felt her secondary and tertiary wings ache when she started thinking about them, and had to mentally chastise herself for wanting to release them. 

“Well… I don’t show anyone those wingzzz. You're no exception. Even if you did show me yours,” she said, reaching back to stroke his nearest tertiary wing, her fingertips drifting down and pinching his ass afterwards. He hissed in a breath and tensed, though his cheeks blushed a bit pink. He reached for her, his fingernails lightly scratching her back where her extra wings should be, the touch making her close her eyes and sigh. She settled back down on her stomach, snuggling the pillow beneath her head, and simply enjoyed his ministrations. 

“I said no, Gabriel,” she said, a bit teasing and a bit stern. Gabriel's hand ventured up her spine, and before she could object, he had pressed a knuckle firmly into that spot between her shoulder blades, forcing all of her wings to materialize against her will. 

Two things happened simultaneously. Gabriel gasped and yanked his hand back, at the same time that Beelzebub jumped quickly out of bed, taking a sheet with her and clutching it into a fist in front of her naked body, her wings tucked closed behind her. 

“Oh _Bee,_” Gabriel whispered, his eyes glistening as he realized what he'd seen. He had expected to see shiny obsidian feathers, if a bit messy like her primary wings. Instead, her Seraphim wings were ragged and torn, clotted with dried blood and bearing horrid wounds that had clearly never been tended to. 

“I have to go,” she said, frantically gathering up her clothes in trembling hands. Gabriel leapt from the bed, catching her and stilling her between his hands, one on either side of her neck. 

“Bee… _what happened?_” he asked, hating the way she shook in his grasp and the way her blue eyes wavered. She sniffed, still clutching her armful of clothes and attempting to steel herself. 

“Nothing. I’m fine. I need to go, Gabriel, I've been gone too long as it izzzz, Hell will be…” 

“Hell will be _fine_. But _you_ won't if you let these get any worse. What the hell _happened?_” 

She took a deep breath in, averting her eyes, though she couldn’t turn away with his hands stilling her like that. 

“After… the incident. At the airbase. There was a coup. A group of demonzzz said they'd… _lost faith in their leadership_. They trapped me in my throne room and attacked me…” 

“_Jesus,_” Gabriel whispered, pulling her into an embrace. She wanted to push him away—she hated feeling vulnerable and raw, but being held against him like this allowed her a moment to wrangle her emotions and hide the threat of tears in her eyes. 

Gabriel pulled back quickly, miracling a small dagger into his hand and flourishing it with quite a bit of skill. “Who was it? Name the demons that did this to you and I'll smite all of them,” he said, his eyes smoldering as his dagger ignited with Holy flames. Beelzebub couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped her lips, seeing Gabriel standing there stark naked and trying to be threatening. He seemed to deflate when she draped a hand over his wrist and lowered the dagger, though she stepped forward and placed a quick kiss to his bottom lip. 

“It'zzzz alright, angel. It'zz been dealt with. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t destroyed all of them for their insolence.” 

“How many were there?!” 

“I don't know… six or seven?” 

“You took on _that many demons_… by yourself? And _won?_” 

Beelzebub grinned, her fingers still loosely wrapped around his wrist and quietly caressing over the pulse point just above his palm. “They don’t call me the Prince of Demons for nothing.” 

Gabriel searched her eyes, his dagger extinguishing before he tapped his finger against the hilt, holding it up and considering it for a moment. 

“Well…” he said, flipping the dagger and catching it by the blade, careful not to graze the sharp edges as he held the handle out to her. “Take this. The blade is etched with an invocation in Enochian. It will destroy a demon with even a glance. Just… mind the blade.” 

Beelzebub stared down at the weapon, her hand carefully grasping the silver handle, noting the three purple gemstones at the top of the pommel. “You’re… giving away your dagger? What if someone asks where I got it?” 

“Tell them you stole it. Tell them you pried it from some angel's cold, dead hands for all I care. That'll make you street cred, right?” 

Beelzebub snorted. “Gabriel, do you even know what 'street cred' meanzzz?” 

“No, but I heard Sandalphon say it once and it sounded cool, ok? Just… please take it? I don’t… like the thought of waiting for you to show up one of these days and… you never do.” 

Beelzebub's smile faded as she wrestled with the weight of his words. She hated to admit it, but the thought of Gabriel waiting for her, checking his watch and growing more worried by the minute… it actually hurt. 

She accepted the dagger, miracling a sheath for it that resembled the wing of a housefly, and carefully laid it atop her pile of clothes, depositing all of it on the floor and stepping back into Gabriel's arms. She didn’t have time to come up with a snarky comment to offset the affection of the gesture, because Gabriel bent quickly and swept her knees out from under her, cradling her naked body in his arms. 

“Now about those wings…” he said, and she growled at him, though her hand clutched at his neck. 

“I told you I'm fine, Gabriel.” 

He ignored her, carrying her into the magnificent bathroom and setting her gently on the side of the oversized bathtub, reaching past her to turn the knobs and test the temperature until it was perfectly warm. He handed her a bath towel to wrap around her waist, his hand ruffling her hair as he exited quickly back toward the bedroom. “Don’t move. I'll be right back.” 

She tilted her head, watching his cute ass as he departed and planning her next opportunity to leave bite marks on it. She wrapped the towel around herself and settled once again on the side of the tub, her feet swinging absently as she glanced around at the bathroom. It was ridiculously luxurious, probably larger than some London flats. It struck her suddenly that Gabriel had probably miracled the honeymoon suite available for them, and she gulped down the panic that bubbled up from even the thought of that… 

Gabriel reemerged from the bedroom, a coffee mug in one hand and a towel wrapped low around his waist, just beneath his chiseled hip bones. He handed her the mug, and she took it, observing the dark, creamy liquid and sniffing at it. 

“You made me coffee?” 

“Yeah. This might take a while, your wings look like hot garbage. Wanted you to have something to drink while I work,” he said with a little smile, waiting for her to take a sip and provide feedback. She complied, surprised to find a very well made cup of coffee with just the amount of cream and sugar that she liked. If he kept making her blush like this she was really going to have to smack him. 

“It'zzz… very good. Thank… you,” she mumbled, the gratitude feeling strange on her tongue. “How did you know how I like my coffee?” 

He shrugged, crawling into the bathtub so he could stand behind her and inspect her injured wings. “I dunno, I guessed. You like me, and I'm surprisingly dark but sweet.” 

She laughed at him, blowing on the coffee to cool it a bit and biting back her immediate smartass comment she might’ve made—something about trying to make handsome idiot coffee. She decided to just let him have his moment of triumph. 

Gabriel retrieved the handheld nozzle next to the faucet, testing the shower of water for the right temperature, before gently cupping the underside of one of Beelzebub’s secondary wings and allowing the warm water to cascade over it, the dried blood slowly dissipating and revealing the wounds beneath. It looked as if a demon's claw had closed around her wing and _ripped_. 

“Holy hell, Bee. This is awful… why didn’t you ever take care of these? They must be draining your energy…” 

Beelzebub's tone was ice cold when she spoke. “I can’t very well groom my own wingzzz, now can I? And… after the coup, I didn’t know who I could trust, so I just… hid them away and… dealt with it.” 

Gabriel felt a pang in his heart as he realized the loneliness most demons must feel, never letting their guard down, never trusting anyone. It must be _exhausting._

“But I thought you and Dagon… you couldn’t trust her?” he asked quietly, and Beelzebub kept her face turned away so he couldn’t see the redness in her eyes. 

“I didn’t know who was involved, and I…” 

She sniffed once, hiding the quake in her voice before it happened. “I didn’t think I could handle a betrayal like that, if it were true. Besidezzzz…” she said, her spine straightening and her head tipping up with forced resolve. “I wanted the wounds. I wanted a reminder of what happenzzz in Hell when you let your guard down. When you get too comfortable in your position. And they served me well in that regard.” 

Gabriel looked down at the many blood covered gashes in her wings, his heart sinking at the thought. “They must be so painful…” 

“I don’t know how many timezzz I have to tell you, Gabriel, I'm the Prince of Demons. I’m fine. A little pain never...” her words broke off into a pained yelp, which she quickly silenced with a hand slapped over her mouth. Gabriel had shifted her wing to get a better look at the wounds, the movement jostling a broken bone and shooting pain all the way from her wing to her spine. She winced and blinked back tears as she remembered the claws sinking into her other wings, holding her down as one of the demons stomped on her wing, snapping it beneath his boot… 

“_Goddamn it, Bee,_” Gabriel seethed, crawling quickly from the bathtub and yanking her hand away from her mouth. He knelt in front of her, one hand gripping her knee with quite a bit of strength and the other grasping her hand that she'd tried to quiet herself with, capturing her attention entirely. His eyes were harsh and unyielding. “Knock that shit off. I get it, ok? You're a mean, scary, tough demon who doesn’t feel pain because pain is weakness and weaknesses get manipulated in Hell. Well you're not in Hell, you’re here, with me. I will _never_ judge you for showing weakness, and I _need_ you to tell me when something hurts, ok? Because hearing you cry like that, because I caused you pain… do you have any idea what that does to me? I hate it. It makes me feel physically sick. Can you do that? Can you _please_… let me help you?” 

Beelzebub's blue eyes were wide and glassy, and her chin quivered almost imperceptibly. She blinked several times, unsure of what to say. Such devotion and empathy… she'd never felt anything like that directed at her. 

She found her vocal chords had all but knotted up in her throat, and she settled on nodding quietly. Gabriel stood, pulling her forward and kissing her hair. He climbed back into the tub, handling her wing with much more care and showering it with warm water. She closed her eyes and sighed, rolling her neck forward as the clotted blood slowly fell away, leaving her wings aching with weightless relief. 

“This might hurt a bit, ok?” Gabriel said quietly, his hands locating the break once again and quickly setting the bone back into place. Beelzebub gasped, though the pain didn’t last very long, because Gabriel had poured angelic healing energy into his hands to instantly dull the pain and mend any sign of a wound. 

“Better?” he asked quietly, and she nodded. He continued to shower her wings with water, his hands occasionally preening feathers that were too damaged and straightening the intact ones. He hated the way she tensed and twitched when his hands got near her wounds, and decided to distract her from the silence and the pain. 

“Do you dream? When you sleep?” he asked, his fingers working through a particularly nasty clot of blood. 

She took a deep breath and held it a while before letting it out. “Only if I want to. We don’t have the luxury of spontaneous dreamzzz, like humans do. We have to plan them if we want them. So usually I don’t bother. I have to keep my mind on so many plans, and schematics, and checklists in Hell… it just feels better to think about nothing at all, for a while.” 

Gabriel nodded, jumping back in to the conversation when she tensed again, her wing trembling beneath his touch. 

“Did you dream last night?” he asked, a hint of a smile in his voice. _Smug bastard_. 

She glanced over her shoulder, putting his smug grin to shame. “Maybe.” 

Gabriel nodded with a brilliant smile, his attention returning to her wing. “Alright, alright. Keep your secrets.” 

Beelzebub let her feet start to swing once again, taking a sip of her coffee as her anxiety began to slowly wane and her body relaxed into the much needed grooming. 

“Did you?” she asked, and Gabriel's hands stilled against her wing. 

“I uh… I think so. It wasn't… I didn’t realize we had to plan things in our dreams so… I guess I just let my mind go wherever it wanted and… it didn’t go anywhere nice…” 

Beelzebub turned, her expression worried. “Did you have a nightmare?” 

“I'm not… entirely sure. It… felt so foreign but familiar. Like a memory I can't quite… I don’t know, I’ve never slept before, I'm probably confused…” 

“No, that’zzz entirely possible. Sometimes if I don’t plan my dreams… I’ll just see memoriezz instead.” 

They were both quiet for a moment, the only sound being the water as it swirled around the drain. She turned away again, her fingers tapping on her knee as she tried to contain the question burning on the edge of her tongue. 

“Gabriel, I know I don’t remember anything from… before The Fall, but… do you?” 

He was quiet for quite a while as he continued to groom her wings, until she was certain he wasn't going to answer. 

“I thought I did,” he answered finally, and she could hear his feathers rustle as he shifted his wings nervously. “I've never had a reason to question my own memories until…” 

_Until you…_

He cleared his throat and continued. 

“But the more I think about it, everything I know is just… what I've been told. About... what The Fallen did to deserve their punishment, how I was supposed to feel about it. When I try to think back to my own memories of The Fallen—a specific moment, a voice, a touch, anything… they're all just... gone." 

Beelzebub stared down into her coffee, then took a tentative sip as she considered what that meant. 

“Do you think… we knew each other?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper, the question soaked with immediate regret. She didn’t want to hear the answer, because she already knew it. There were only ever four Seraphim at any given time, and Gabriel was one of them. 

"I don't like to think about that,” Gabriel answered quickly, his voice stern. “Because, if we did, and She took away my memories of you, all the while knowing that we would eventually..." his voice failed him for a moment, and he growled angrily at himself before continuing. 

"I'd be very angry with Her, if that were the case." 

"Don't," Beelzebub barked, pulling her wings closed and turning quickly, so she could look him in the eyes. "Don't talk like that. Feeling wrath toward the one who made you… some of us fell for less." 

Gabriel stared at her for a moment, before his lips turned up in a slight smile. 

“Oh, come on, I think I'd be a pretty good demon,” he teased, attempting to lighten the mood a bit. Beelzebub grinned, though her eyes did not match the gesture. She turned away again, spreading her wings and pushing them back into Gabriel's waiting hands. 

“There’zzz no such thing as a good demon. There are only bad angels.” 

Gabriel made a noncommittal noise, his hands returning to her wings and working through the last of the dried blood. 

“Gabriel, I've been thinking…” 

“Yikes, that's not good,” Gabriel teased, narrowly avoiding a broken nose when one of Beelzebub's primary wings shot open. 

“Shut up idiot, and let me speak,” she said, unable to hide the amusement in her voice. “You remember what you said, that first time we met up for drinks?” 

“Bee you’re gonna have to be more specific. I was spewing a lot of words when I was trying to get in your pants.” 

That time Beelzebub actually _did_ manage to give Gabriel a face full of feathers when she smacked him with her wing. 

“You said that you and I deserved some recompense, right? For following the plan and seeing to our duties so meticulously. We deserved some kind of reward for our hard work, if the war wasn’t meant to be the reward. Well I've got mine now. It'zzz a ridiculously handsome, kinky Archangel and I want him all for myself,” she said with a devilish grin tossed back at him. 

“And it seemzzz we're both in the same predicament. I have been remiss in my position as Prince of Hell. You said yourself you've been neglecting your job up in Heaven because you're frustrated. If I don’t assert my power in Hell, and scare the living piss out of every demon under my command, I could face another mutiny, probably on a larger scale. And if you continue on your current path, you could Fall. I don’t want either of those thingzzz to happen, and the first solution that came to mind was we don’t see each other anymore…” 

Gabriel dropped the spray nozzle, and it clanked loudly against the porcelain bathtub. His one hand that cradled her wing sank a little deeper into her feathers. 

“Don't panic, wank wingzzz, I didn’t like that solution either. So here'zzz what I suggest…” she turned, shaking all six of her wings out and finding them entirely preened and healed, the light pouring in the bathroom windows warming where an angel's gentle hands had restored them. She stepped into the bathtub so she could be face to face with Gabriel. 

“You go back to Heaven, and I go back to Hell. You become the hardest working angel the Almighty hazzz ever seen. You put Michael, and Uriel, and Sandalphon to shame. You make sure She doesn’t quezzztion how good you are, because when you come down to Earth…” she hooked a finger into the towel around his waist, pulling it loose and tossing it out over the side of the tub and onto the floor. “I want you to be my bad, bad angel. Think you can do that?” 

Gabriel's throat bobbed, and he swallowed hard, his voice still abandoning him. He nodded, wide-eyed. 

“And I'll do the same. I'll make sure no demon stepzzz a _toe_ out of line. We'll do this right, not the way the traitorzzz did. They neglected their work and eventually we caught on. I don’t want to give either of our sidezzz an excuse to pry into what we're doing. Because when we meet on Earth, we leave all of that to the godforsaken bureaucracy of our superiors. When I'm on Earth, I won't tempt anyone but you, and you worship no one but me. Understood?” 

Beelzebub had used Gabriel's enraptured attention to step closer to him, removing her own towel and pushing him down to sit in the bathtub. She finished off her tirade by placing two very intent hands on his shoulders and straddling him, her thighs gripping his sides as she grinded down against his hardening cock, her teeth nibbling at his ear. Gabriel's hands smoothed around her sides to grip both her butt cheeks, a long sigh warming her neck. 

“And that starts… right now?” he asked, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end at the sinister chuckle he received from the Prince, her wings spreading out behind her and framing her like cursed stained glass. 

“In a few hourzzz. Heaven can have you when I'm damn well done with you.”


End file.
